Process Guidance

Cochrane Collaboration

The Cochrane Collaboration’s tools and resources will guide your systematic review whether or not it is a Cochrane Review.

• Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions
• Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews
• Cochrane Handbook for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Reviews: in development

Institute of Medicine, National Academies

• Finding What Works in Health Care: Standards for Systematic Reviews

JBI

The Manual for Evidence Synthesis provides guidance for all types of systematic and other expert reviews.

• JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis

Reporting

Various Guidelines

• Realist And Meta-narrative Evidence Syntheses: Evolving Standards (RAMESES)
• Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses in Environmental Research (ROSES)
• Structured Approach to the Reporting in Healthcare Education of Evidence Synthesis (STORIES)

The PRISMA Statement

PRISMA stands for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. PRISMA has several extensions, including extensions for protocols, individual patient data, network meta-analyses, and more.

• PRISMA Statement
• PRISMA Explanation and Elaboration
• PRISMA Protocol Extension
• PRISMA Checklist
• PRISMA Flow Diagram
• PRISMA Search Extension
• Other PRISMA Extensions

Other Relevant Publications

• Whiting, P., Savović, J., Higgins, J. P., Caldwell, D. M., Reeves, B. C., Shea, B., Davies, P., Kleijnen, J., Churchill, R., & ROBIS group (2016). ROBIS: A new tool to assess risk of bias in systematic reviews was developed. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 69, 225–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2015.06.005
• University of York Centre for Reviews and Dissemination. “Registering a Review on PROSPERO.” https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/#guidancenotes